The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded Colorado State University’s Engines and Energy Conversion Laboratory a $1.2 million grant to build a semi-gasifer cookstove; a more efficient biomass cookstove that could further reduce indoor air pollution, a leading cause of death for women and children under age 5.

Currently, CSU engineers use a one-step, rocket elbow stove that reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 65 percent and fuel consumption by 50 percent. A semi-gasifer stove will allow for a two-step process to combust solid biomass, resulting in even lower emissions.

While two-thirds of the world’s population use biomass to cook their food and heat their homes, CSU has focused their efforts on designing the stoves specifically for China and India. “With nearly 360 million and 690 million users respectively, China and India use more wood for cooking than any other countries,” says Morgan DeFoort, CSU laboratory co-director. “As the health data grows, it is more and more apparent that emissions reductions of improved stoves using rocket-elbow technology are not adequate.”

DeFoort will lead a team of researches from CSU, Lawrence Berkely Nation Laboraty, Princeton University and Envirofit International to build the more efficent semi-gasifer cookstove.

CSU’s Engines and Energy Conversion Laboratory is one of the most advanced cookstove laboratories in the nation, and its engineers are among the best in the world at developing international cookstove standards and testing protocols. Led by DeFoort, students and faculty at CSU will continue to improve cookstove technology with the help of the Department of Energy grant, by creating generic technology that could be applied to a variety of stove designs.

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